#and b. its hard to get a host normally now that they decompose so fast... so he sticks around 049 for support...pestering him a Lot.

[rangertowerdefensesimulator]

i like to imagine, after escaping site-19, 049 and 035 try and live a ""normal"" life. 049 tries to go on with curing the pestilence while 035 clings onto them like a parasite :-) (and 049 enjoys it.) (atleast to some capacity)

[cupidmarwani-archive]

Afterward (9/13)

Connor

19 January | ~ 15:00

Upon seeing Connor’s body, I realized things are worse than I thought. I believe that the body should  be destroyed and the whole hospital cleansed. I am currently in a locked in the morgue with April and Dr. Halstead, but not Connor. I don’t know where he is. My best guess, at this time, is that he is at the center of the current chaos. April I need you to read the first page of this quicky. I don’t have much time.

-

 April wheels Sarah into the room and up to the cold metal slab with Connor’s body on it. It’s rotting, but the room’s been filled with preservatives- as has his body- to try and protect them from the smell. She struggles to her feet and steadies herself on the edge of the table. The blood that covers Connor’s ghost has been wiped off his skin, and there’s a stapled but unhealed gash from his sternum to his lower stomach, presumably from the autopsy, and someone has taken the time to drape a sheet over his waist for modesty. It’s a nice gesture. A human one.

In terms of health and safety, Sarah should probably put gloves on before she touches a body, but in terms of her job, there’s no use. She needs her hands right now. Which also means letting go of the table. The second she tries, she begins to lose her balance, only for April’s hands to settle firmly on her waist and her chest to press into Sarah’s back.

“I’ve got you,” she says gently. And Sarah believes her.

She raises shaky hands to cup the body’s face, all waxy pallid skin that flakes at her touch. Later, when they’re not in such imminent danger, she thinks she might throw up about it. But not right now, when she needs to be strong. When she carefully lifts the face, blood begins dripping from the nose, bright red and thin, like it would from a living body. Not a decomposing one.

“What the fuck,” Will hisses.

Sarah ignores him.

Carefully, she lowers the head down again and steels herself for what she’s about to do next. One by one, she pries the staples out of the chest and pulls slightly at the skin to allow the incision to fall open. In spite of broken ribs from the autopsy- they were in the procedure report- everything seems to be in place. They’re not too badly damaged, seem all right, but then she realizes something is moving.

“Sarah,” April says behind her, voice high and slightly panicked. “Sarah, what’s going on?”

The movement, as it turns out, is the body’s heart. It’s still beating. It’s black, deoxygenated, but beating slow and steady. This, right here, is the literal heart of everything that’s been happening in the hospital. It needs to be destroyed, but first, it has to be removed from the body. Sarah really doesn’t want to. But she doesn’t have a choice, and forces herself not to vomit at the thought. She’s done this before. Not in a situation like this, not with people nearby, not with the first person she’s kissed in years standing behind her, but she’s done this before.

“Dr. Halstead-”

“You can call me Will now, I think,” Will interrupts. “Since my dead b- since my dead friend tried to kill you and all.”

The slip up rings in her ears. That could be what made Connor a target in the first place. “Will, I need you to get me a couple things, can you do that?”

“I’ll try.”

“Right. I need, a- a knife thing. Whatever they’re called. Something sharp and precise. And I need something I can close airtight, like a biohazard bag or something. Quickly.”

April shifts uneasily behind her. “What’re you going to do?”

“I need to get rid of the infestation.”

Thankfully, Will didn’t hear. That, or he’s choosing to ignore it as he searches for what she needs. April moves a hand from Sarah’s waist to spray the anise into the air again, which is a good idea considering what she’s about to try. It’s not a strong protector, but hopefully it’ll allow her to remove and contain the heart until it can be destroyed. But that means she definitely has to get out of this hospital. Cleanse all her tools, destroy it. And hopefully, that’ll clear the spirits haunting April too, which she should really be more concerned about than she is. April needs protecting.

“Okay, I’ve got the scalpel.” Will sets it on the edge of the table, careful not to touch the body. “Still looking for a biohazard bag.”

Sarah curls her hand around the tool and it feels so light. Her usuals are heavy with the weight of what they’ve done and the connected materials. This will have to do. She shuts her eyes and does her best to cleanse it. She doesn’t have real smoke, or any of her crystals, or anything else she’d normally use, but she focuses on making herself light and trying to extend that to the scalpel. Maybe it’ll help. Maybe not. But it isn’t like they have much time.

She braces one hand in the body’s chest, holding a lung out of the way as she starts cutting at one of the arteries near the heart. It oozes something that isn’t quite blood, but at the same time, screaming begins in the difference.

Will covers his ears. “Do you guys hear-”

The hospital PA system starts, then, talking about codes and making orders, and April runs from Sarah’s side to lock the door tightly. Sarah knows something is wrong, extremely wrong, but she can’t think about that. She keeps sawing through the artery, even as it begins to coat her hands in the not-blood and she can faintly hear April trying to keep Will from hyperventilating. Her legs are weak. It’s hard to tell how long she can stay standing up for this, but it doesn’t really matter right now.

At that moment, something cold and vaguely slimy wraps around her wrist.

She actually does come close to vomiting this time when she realizes it’s the body’s hand. Sarah refuses to call it Connor, because it isn’t him anymore. The spirit isn’t really either.  A sharp sound close to panic manages to escape as she drops the scalpel and starts trying to pull out of its grip. The body sits up, stares at her and bares its teeth as a gunshot echos in the building. Connor did something. He made someone do something. People are hurt because Sarah pissed everything off and now she’s struggling to get the body to let go of her.

“I need help,” she manages to say, and suddenly April and Will are at her side, both breathing way too heavily and frantically trying to pry fingers off her wrist. “It’s got my right hand. One of you keep trying to cut out the heart.”

“I’ve got it,” Will answers.

He picks up the scalpel and, with a sound not unlike a sob, picks up where Sarah left off. Except now, the body changes tactics entirely. It stops fighting and looks at Will with what’s left of his face. “Sunshine, why are you doing this to me?” It asks, and it sounds just like Connor. Its face flickers, and it looks like he does without the blood or decay. She sees through it, but Will probably can’t. “You’re hurting me!”

“I- I-”

Will stares at his hands, coated in the not-blood. It must look red to him.

“Will, listen to me, it’s not real. This thing isn’t Connor anymore,” Sarah says desperately. At that exact moment, the body lets go of her. This isn’t good. “It’s not Connor. Don’t listen.”

“Give me the scalpel,” it says. “You’re hurting me.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” Will whimpers.

And he gives it the scalpel.

Before Sarah can blink, the blade is in her stomach, slowly dragging up in a mock of the autopsy slice on the body. It hurts, but at the same time, she feels cold. There’s blood dripping everywhere. April’s holding her again, yelling at her, but Sarah doesn’t hear it. Something here just feels wrong. 

“Will, its heart,” she chokes out. Or at least she thinks she does. Blood drools down her chin and chest. Someone needs to cut the heart out, or do anything to make this thing stop before it hurts April too. “Will-”

April says something, and then she’s pulling Sarah over to lay in the corner. She can’t breathe, and the pressure being applied to her stomach makes her squirm. If she’s going to die, she needs a blessing, to be cleansed so she doesn’t linger, but she can’t say as much because nothing in her body is listening. 

“Book,” Sarah manages to say.

A moment later, her notebook is in her hands and she’s scribbling down notes as fast as she can. This book could help people, including April, because the funny thing is, Sarah knows she’s dying. She can feel it. Her handwriting is getting more and more sloppy.

She points to the last phrase in the notebook, smearing blood everywhere, and as April tries to decipher it and find the page which lists the dying blessing, Sarah watches Will cry keep pulling at the body’s heart. It isn’t coming out well, not without the scalpel, but he’s trying so hard and the resistance is what mattered because Connor is this thing’s host. And Connor, he loves Will a lot.

Another loud bang echoes in Sarah’s ears. This is a war zone, but of a different sort. April finds the right page and she’s reading it as the world starts to fade at the edges. Her hearing fades to a ringing noise that would ordinarily give Sarah the worst headache. 

She’s cold. But April’s here, and Will is working at the body’s heart, and at least everything will be okay. Everything’s going to be okay because she helped.

Her eyes flutter shut. 

There isn’t a light to walk toward, or the voice of a loved one beckoning her ever closer. It’s just dark and cold. Sarah isn’t scared of it. She made her peace with death years ago, before she became what she is now. This is the end, and she trusts that she’s done what she’s supposed to, and April will be okay.

Her chest stops hurting. 

Her heart finally gives up only ten minutes after they entered the morgue.